· Public charity
Education Comes First Inc
Furthering the education of children outside of the classroom by enhancing their performance in the areas of mathematics, reading, and social development
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2022–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 24 grants below total $920,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $1,022,500 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $102,500 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k21 grants · $765k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $155k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LAWRENCE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB | $52,500 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF LYNN | $52,500 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF LOWELL | $50,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER HAVERHILL | $45,000 |
| GLEN COVE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB | $45,000 |
| PRIVATE JEWELS BOXING CLUB | $45,000 |
| GRENVILLE BAKER BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB | $45,000 |
| GIRLS INC OF LYNN | $45,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF LMV | $45,000 |
| FRIENDS OF THE CHILDREN NEW YORK | $42,500 |
| THE REAL PROGRAM | $40,000 |
| LEAP FOR EDUCATION | $37,500 |
| SALEM BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB | $37,500 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF OYSTER BAY | $37,500 |
| BUILDING BRIDGES THROUGH MUSIC | $37,500 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY24–24, $53k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +41% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down; 15 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 40% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $555k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- BGBOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF LYNN INC2× · 2022–2024 · $78k · revenue +78%
- GBGRENVILLE BAKER BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB INC2× · 2022–2024 · $70k · revenue +139%
BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER HAVERHILL INC2× · 2022–2024 · $68k · revenue +9%
Funded once
- YMYOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF METRO NORTH INCone grant, 2024 · $53k · revenue +12%
LAWRENCE BOYS & GIRLS CLUB INCone grant, 2024 · $53k · revenue +14%- GCGLEN COVE BOYS & GIRLS CLUB AT LINCOLN HOUSE INCone grant, 2024 · $45k · revenue 0%
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
To enable all young people, especially those that need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, and responsible citizens.
To enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring and responsible citizens.
To inspire and enable all young people, especially those from disadvantaged circumstances, to realize their full potential as productive, responsible, and caring citizens.
To empower all youth, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, and responsible citizens.
The boys & girls club of greater new bedford, inc. is dedicated to providing a stimulating and wholesome environment which promotes social, educational, character and physical development for children and young adults ages 7 - 18 years.…
Boys & girls clubs of boston (bgcb) stands as a transformative force in boston and chelsea, where high expectations unlock greatness. we believe that every young person who walks through our doors carries limitless potential. through our…
To provide guidance social, educational, physical and cultural programming for boys and girls in the greater metrowest, massachusetts area. the intent of these programs is to enhance development during the growth years of children and to…
To inspire and enable all young people, especially those most in need of our services, to realize and develop their full potential as productive, responsible and caring citizens in a global society.
To inspire and to enable all young people to reach their full potential as productive, caring and responsible citizens
Provide opportunities for positive and healthy growth for youth in our communities.
To inspire and enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to realize their full potential as productive, responsible and caring citizens
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Boys & Girls Club of Greater Lowell Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Real Program Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 56 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 11% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
20 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 20 of the 23 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF LYNN INC ↗
- Who funds GRENVILLE BAKER BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER HAVERHILL INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF THE LOWER MERRIMACK VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds GIRLS INCORPORATED OF BOSTON AND LYNN ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER LOWELL INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF METRO NORTH INC ↗
- Who funds LAWRENCE BOYS & GIRLS CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds BUILDING BRIDGES THROUGH MUSIC INC ↗
- Who funds GLEN COVE BOYS & GIRLS CLUB AT LINCOLN HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE CHILDREN- NEW YORK ↗
- Who funds THE REAL PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds LEAP for Education Inc ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF OYSTER BAY - EAST NORWICH ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER SALEM INC ↗
- Who funds CAMP FIRE NORTH SHORE INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH SHORE ALLIANCE OF GAY LESBIAN BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENDER YOUTH (NAGLY) ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF TROY ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE ↗
- Who funds JAMES L MCKEOWN BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF WOBURN INC ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Boys & Girls Clubs of America (Group Return) · Boys & Girls Clubs of America · Cummings Foundation Grants Inc (Fka Oneworld Boston Inc) · Eastern Bank Foundation · United Way Of Massachusetts Bay Inc · Salem Five Charitable Foundation Inc · Health Resources in Action Inc · Essex County Community Foundation Inc · Amelia Peabody Foundation · The Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation Inc · Rockland Trust - East Boston Savings Bank Foundation Inc · Rockland Trust Charitable Foundation Inc
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Education Comes First Inc funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Girls Incorporated of Boston and Lynn — 28% of income from government
- Boys & Girls Club of Greater Lowell Inc — 27% of income from government
- Building Bridges Through Music Inc — 19% of income from government
- Leap for Education Inc — 9% of income from government
- Boys & Girls Club of Greater Salem Inc — 4% of income from government
- Boys & Girls Club of Greater Haverhill Inc — 1% of income from government
- Boys & Girls Club of Lynn Inc — 0% of income from government
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Education Comes First Inc?
Find your warmest path to Education Comes First Inc through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.